City to face oversupply in real estate

SHANGHAI residences will be in oversupply in the next few years as residents will only need up to 24 million square meters a year, while 33 million square meters of new residences may enter the market annually, China News Service quoted a survey as saying today.

In some neighborhoods, the amount of unsold residences accounts for 40 percent now.

Property sales tumbled last month by 35.6 percent to 16,245 units from a month earlier. This was the lowest in the first half of this year except in February, as many potential buyers and developers took a wait-and-see type of attitude because of the uncertainty of when and how the local government will implement new state regulations.

The transacted volume in Pudong New Area reached 2,298 units last month, nearly 1,000 less than a month earlier, although the volume was the highest among all districts in the period.

Sales in Minhang District dropped the sharpest in the period, and its sales last week fell by 48 percent from a week earlier. But sales in suburban areas, like Nanhui District, grew because of the lower prices.

Last month, 38.9-percent less residences were promoted in the market, totaling 989,000 square meters, after the central government began implementing regulations to cool the real estate market.

“Developers are uncertain about the future market, so they are planning to sit back and wait for the changes. The real estate market will enter its off-season in the next few months,” said an anonymous developer.

Les Calvert is the owner of overseaspropertymall.com and many other property and travel related websites. Les writes news and articles on the overseas property market for leading websites, trade magazines and newspapers.